Brown digs at Ricciardo and Sainz: 'Years of little opposition for Norris'

With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, McLaren achieved fine results especially in the second half of the 2023 F1 season. Thanks to rookie Piastri, the British team even managed to win the sprint race in Qatar. Despite this, Norris finished ahead of his younger teammate in the championship. The Brit had probably his best season in F1 so far.

According to Zak Brown, McLaren's CEO, Norris excelled partly because Piastri was breathing down his neck. Speaking to Speedcafe.com, the American argues that this was different with Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo by his side in recent years. "Lando was kind of unchallenged for the most part over the last couple of years. Even though drivers always drive to the best of their ability, we know if you have a teammate who's pushing you, you just get a little bit more without even necessarily trying. It just happens."

Piastri and Norris helped McLaren's engineers

In other words, the fact that Piastri was so close to Norris helped the latter's speed. Moreover, Brown says, his drivers have a similar feel to the car. "So I think in addition to just driving faster and harder, I think they quite complement each other. When you listen to them in the debriefs, they kind of say the same stuff. So that's also helped the engineers and the designers pick a direction."

According to Brown, there is nothing more complicated than when one driver wants to go one way with the car's development while the other wants to go in a completely different direction. Next season, McLaren hopes to take the next step with Piastri and Norris behind the wheel and challenge Red Bull Racing even more.